German Advent Calendar Features Serial Killer

By cwaltersNovember 8, 2007

A cartoon advent calendar for kids, sold by the city of Hanover in Germany, has a tiny drawing of local serial killer Fritz Haarmann, who murdered 24 people during the 1920s. He’s holding a meat cleaver and peeking out from behind a tree, while happy men, women, and children enjoy the holiday all around him. He’s one of 24 famous people from Hanover who appear on the calendar; “It’s part of our history,” says Hans Nolte, the director of the town’s tourism board.

The town is not recalling the calendar—in fact, now that word has gotten out about the unsavory character on it, sales have gone up. “People are queuing up to buy the calendar now,” says Nolte, who expects the full run of 20,000 calendars to quickly sell out. However, Haarmann will be removed for next year’s version.

This is why you can’t say that American foreign policy is flawed without being called a “traitor” or “terrorist,” and why Carter is called a racist for stating his opinions on the middle-east. People are all hot for outlawing everything they disagree with.

@mconfoy: Lang’s “M” was mostly based on Peter KÃ¼rten, otherwise known as the Vampire of DÃ¼sseldorf. He confessed to 79 murders (and was convcted of 9). Haarman was an also-ran at a mere 24 murders.

Certainly the timing is right for both of them — Haarman was beheaded in 1924, while the movie was made in 1931. KÃ¼rten was arrested in 1930. However, KÃ¼rten would kill anyone — men, women and children, while Haarman’s crimes were targeted towards young male prostitutes and homeless boys.

This doesn’t surprise me at all. My mom’s German and we had two German children’s books in my house: “Max und Moritz” ([www.childrensbooksonline.org]) in which the two title characters play awful pranks on people in the town until they are eventually ground down into feed by the miller. The other was a book that contained the Struwwelpeter mentioned above, wherein our young hero has his thumbs cut off: [www.fln.vcu.edu]

@GitEmSteveDave: Seriously, what’s with the conspiracy theory that Germany denies WWII? Where does this come from? Has anyone been paying attention to the movies coming out of Germany recently? Downfall, Sophie Scholl, Lives of Others – If they’re trying to act like it never happened, they’re doing a horrible job of it.

@G-Dog: Way to take my comment to an illogical extreme. You have exhibited an impressive level of obtuseness and conclusion-jumping.

For those who didn’t get it, my point was this: why be taken aback by this single image when we’re all OK with kids interacting with violence for hours? That’s all. I had drawn no lines between which to read.